This discovery was announced several months ago (as you will see in the links at the end of this post), but I have only just received this BBC article
When we think of moats we generally associate them with castles, or upper class residences and manor houses. We do not associate them with lower classes such as peasants. But it seems we are wrong in this.
At Cowfield Farm (in Ashchurch on the eastern edge of Tewkesbury) excavations have revealed a moat that surrounded a farm belonging to Tewkesbury Abbey. The farm had “….legally free [peasants] holding land as tenants of Tewkesbury Abbey, two miles away….”
There was a wooden bridge over the moat, and its remains have been dendrochronologically dated to the middle of the 15th century. The moat itself and the farm site is 12th-13th century.
A great many artefacts have been discovered, including a pilgrim badge of St Michael defeating the Devil (in the form of a dragon). All the finds are being stored at Tewkesbury Museum, but it doesn’t seem that they are to be put on display. Not yet, at least.
The landscape today is one of “….industrial parks, retail centres and an MoD depot, just off one of the M5 junctions…” It’s hard to picture its medieval self, but you can read about the history of Cowfield Farm and Ashchurch here.
Oddly, in spite of all the recent excitement about this moat, its existence has been known for a long time. Ordnance Survey clearly marked it on their 1921 Gloucestershire Sheet XII.SW, revised 1921, published 1924, see here a portion of which is illustrated below. The farm and map are certainly there on the six-inch 1830s-1880s map too, see here.
I don’t know if it has appeared on even earlier maps, but I guess so. It seems that a fire provided an opportunity to dig on the site
The shape of the site can be seen today on Google Maps, albeit now reduced to being something that looks suspiciously like a car park. I may be wrong, of course.
More about the archaeological dig can be found at these sites: here, here and here.
murreyandblue 